Driver gets ticket for going one kilometre over speed limit

Mathieu Gagne of Alberta says he received this ticket after driving 101 kilometres in a 100-kilometre zone north of Edmonton. The Canadian Press.

An Alberta man is shaking his head after a peace officer gave him a ticket for driving one kilometre over the speed limit.

Mathieu Gagne, 31, said he was nabbed Friday in his Jeep for driving 101 kilometres in a 100-kilometre zone just north of Edmonton.

The father of two boys said he was pulled over after passing the Sturgeon County officer, who was driving below the speed limit.

The officer wrote out the ticket after accusing Gagne of disrespecting him by passing his vehicle, he said.

“It was my right to pass the officer. When I completed the pass, he turned his lights on. I pulled over and he came up to me and the first thing he said was ‘That was pretty ballsy of you,’” Gagne said Tuesday.

“He said that was disrespectful.”

Gagne said he was flabbergasted by the $78 ticket and was concerned about how the driving demerit points would affect his insurance rate.

“I was mad. Why? It was one over. It was absurd.”

When he got home he told his partner, Larissa Turnbull, about what happened. She posted an account of the traffic stop, including a picture of the ticket, on Facebook.

Her social media post generated a lot of buzz and the county cancelled the ticket on Monday, citing an error by the officer.

“Upon further review, they did only estimate the driver’s speed and they did not record it or measure it on radar and laser as they indicated on the ticket,” said Gwen Wolansky, a county spokeswoman.